Why Gibo Teodoro changed his mind on the RH Bill

Presidential candidate Gibo Teodoro & his pretty wife, the congresswoman from the 1st district of Tarlac were once supporters of the Reproductive Health (RH) bill. A few weeks ago, they changed their minds regarding the RH bill. So when the opportunity came to ask Mr. Teodoro some questions, I had to take it.

Why did Gibo change his mind regarding the RH bill?

Gibo Teodoro answered my question with authority & strong conviction. I was actually speechless throughout his reply. Now after reviewing the video that I just realized that I have several followup questions to his answer.

Gibo Teodoro said the main problem of the RH bill debate was this: Everybody got so involved with the bill & how to pass it that everybody forgot about what the actual problem was and how to fix it.

Mr. Teodoro then said that this debate is about government substituting itself as the people’s moral guardians. He said it was a mistake because family planning is a personal issue. He then recounted that the Reproductive Health bill will not pass. He reasoned, what good can the RH Bill do if we fight for something knowing the effort would simply fail?

GIbo said that there are things we need to know about our population problem:

* We have this problem because we have limited resources;
* We have a finite quantity of land for 92M and growing population. This population we will need to feed and provide for;
* There’s the classic conflict between church and state. He said that we get into trouble without our moral guardians.

Then there’s the classic conflict between church and state. Gibo believes that the right thing to do is to accept that the government is not the right moral guardian for personal questions.

What personal questions? Like whether to have children or not. How many children they should have and what method of contraception and family planning to use.

Gibo believes that our moral guardians must be responsible for reproductive health because it is a question of morality and a personal choice. However he thinks that moral guardians must be responsible and accountable for our population management.

Gibo Teodoro has this belief that a government’s role in reproductive health is to support a couple’s moral choice (not influence it). Gibo Teodoro chose to withdraw his support for the bill because he thinks that we are not dealing with the problem but we get involved only in a debate that nobody wins.

However, I think Gibo Teodoro forgets that the Church– our moral guardians have already been in charge of our reproductive health for centuries since we have been a Catholic and very religious Country for that long. That’s why we have a population problem because our moral guardians have failed. Isn’t that why we are debating reproductive health today because our population problem is already an issue? So, why should we give them a chance when they have already failed?

When Gibo Teodoro mentioned that at some point, it is shown that the “experiment” is not working, then the government should step in. As I mentioned in my previous article on Reproductive Health Bill, if we don’t act now, then we will double our population in 10 years. Is this the time that Gibo will start to step in? When everything is too late?

Mr. Teodoro must realize that time is not on our side. We don’t have time to “experiment”. We cannot pass responsibility to our moral guardians. We cannot pass responsibility of reproductive health to some future generation. If Mr. Teodoro will become the next president of the Philippines, then he needs to make a stand or else our country will be facing greater problems years from now.

Gibo’s stand on Reproductive Health Bill & Population Management is actually to do nothing & wait till everything is out of control. He does not realize though that for many families, when it comes to reproductive health & family planning, they don’t really have a real choice. Either because of lack of education regarding contraception & family planning or lack of essential tools. If our moral guardians had these education & tools then his “experiment” would suffice.

The ProPinoy Project

The ProPinoy Project

The ProPinoy Project is a Global Community Center for all things Pinoy, to connect Filipinos at home and abroad by creating a space for ideas, trends and analyses about the Philippines and the global Pinoy community to inspire informed discussion and transformative action.

The ProPinoy Project is a Global Community Center for all things Pinoy, to connect Filipinos at home and abroad by creating a space for ideas, trends and analyses about the Philippines and the global Pinoy community to inspire informed discussion and transformative action.